Roused from a sleep in dark pools of blood and sin
by Lady Heliotrope
Summary: From afar, he could hear the mellow blackbird call, rousing him from a sleep in dark pools of blood and sin. On hiatus.
1. Chapter 1

**Opus IV**

**i.**

The way of the wizard child is a strange one;  
>Power manifests in fulfillment of deep desires<br>To talk to flower-fairies, to keep one's hair long.  
>But time and age often quench the strongest of these fires.<p>

Still there are moments when Christlike self-control,  
>Born of necessity, swings to the other spectrum-side<br>In a mature wizard or witch, who regresses to the role  
>Of a child again, a victim of fight or flight and terrified.<p>

For a person notoriously indulgent in extremes,  
>Whose life-existence depended on his facades,<br>And for whom death was a complexly nuanced dream,  
>Such a reaction would facilitate avoiding morality, and God.<p>

Thus it should have come without surprise to him  
>That, from afar, he could hear the mellow blackbird call,<br>Rousing him from a sleep in dark pools of blood and sin,  
>A sleep where hollow, sweet, and clear visions enthralled.<p>

The prince was first bewildered, then both relieved and enraged,  
>For it was both a blessing and a curse to remain on earth.<br>But his soul soon hosted greater fear, with which his sanity waged  
>A battle as titanic as that of his unhappy parents at his birth.<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

ii.

In his sleep he must have flirted with death, and lost her favor  
>And won instead the courtship of Adiona, who led him safely home<br>To the time of his life when he knew joy in almost all of its flavors  
>And left him in the Shrieking Shack, no longer battered, but alone.<p>

Rip Van Winkle was not Snape; the mythic man's drowse aged him  
>As natural and linear as the growth of a magnificent oak tree.<br>Severus instead had lost the wizened lines of burdens grim  
>That marked his face as one whose soul never was free.<p>

Severus was a child again, and unnerved by this course of events  
>He paced the floors (though his custom was with longer steps)<br>Thinking why the gods gifted to a man whose life was full of laments  
>A new chance at acquiring life, liberty, and happiness.<p>

Was his new age a trick of the mind, an addle of the brain,  
>One more unfunny joke with which the universe taunted his heart?<br>Severus was as accustomed to these things as he was to rain.  
>Even if it was a blessing, all he could do now was take part.<p>

O for a sun to light his way home! Instead the moon crept upward  
>And looked white through the window, turning visions of bushes<br>Sitting plainly in the darkness, like stones in a floodplain unexplored  
>Into witches with sleepy eyes, scarlet bud lips, and white faces.<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

**iii.**

In the dim solitude, his heart remembered tearlessly  
>The beauty of a nymph who had vexed his soul's dark wood;<br>Years when white winters were spent in Lily's company  
>And the unquiet ghosts of dead and restless men did not haunt the world.<p>

From the windows of Shrieking Shack, he watched  
>The Hogwarts students shine with the ruddy enchanted wine<br>Of youthful vigor and moonlight, and their sprightly walk  
>Inspired in him a wish to be among them and connect to the divine.<p>

"Here we should build a tomb," said one, "with grey and crooked bowers  
>In this garden of thistledown and tares, with moss to green the stones.<br>There we shall lay Titania, sometime this night, lulled in those flowers,  
>Which will dance and delight her, a salve to her weary and dry bones."<p>

Said her friend, "As much as twilight rain and long-leaved grass in the shadows  
>May be beautiful to a lady whose bed-partners are the daughters of Hades,<br>Titania does not fancy a place without nightingales, larks, or sparrows.  
>No thank you, dear Jane, I will rest in a place where the living promenade."<p>

Keen from his lair, the Slytherin spider leaned against the fragile pane of window,  
>Pangs of longing in his child-body to join these teenage girls<br>And receive the tender kisses they bestowed on each others' brows  
>As he might from three older sisters, even though the loops and curls<p>

Of their handwritten essays might blossom in lands far from the region of 'Outstanding'.  
>As his students he knew their prosaic voices well, though their real ones less.<br>He heard them now, and they were juvenile, unwittingly cruel, concerned with things  
>That no daughter of Severus Snape would dare to ponder or confess.<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

iv.

He felt both pain and relief at being so distanced from their impish laughter,  
>Watching them kept his judgmental thoughts from turning inward;<br>There was nothing but a bully's glee in criticizing their conversation matter  
>But such was the only ego-subsisting lift his drowning soul had in the world.<p>

The voiceless Ravenclaw child was black in silence to her Hufflepuff mates,  
>Who were hoping with hushed giggles that no soul would disturb them there.<br>This girl seemed full of unease, and while the others arranged their game,  
>Her dark eyes seemed to whisper dread, roaming until they met Severus' stare.<p>

At first her face became as white as the sighing glare of the moon.  
>Remorseful, desperate, her lips parted in a wordless appeal,<br>Then cancelled their venture as she flew to attend her friend's rule,  
>Only to return with decreasing fear as she saw he would stay concealed.<p>

She seemed to regard him, as he looked out on their proceedings,  
>Like a benevolent witness, and indeed she subtly communicated gratitude<br>Without speaking. She did not recognize him, but seemed to be needing  
>One who might see her reluctance and shame, one with a perspective of latitude.<p>

She seemed to say to his open eyes, with the grief of the accursed,  
>'Build me my tomb, within the dark yew tree, and in the autumn there,<br>The yewberries will be golden lamps to burn for me,' her soul's mortality first  
>On her mind that night, and Severus was the only one who wanted to hear. <strong><br>**


	5. Chapter 5

v.

Maybe she gave her trust because she thought him a ghost; what else would a child be doing  
>Looking out of the window of the haunted Shrieking Shack on young ladies,<br>Who seemed to be making secret preparations for clandestine potions-brewing,  
>With the calm aloofness of the undead and the longing of a slave to Hades?<p>

It became clear why she sought the mercy of the only eyes to see their acts in place of her creator's,  
>As the girls lit their cauldron on a mound of dry grass and slipped off their clothing.<br>Their youthful curves were enchanting as they lay like dogs on their backs  
>And they sang and writhed with the ancient secrets of Lilith, ecstatically moaning.<p>

After the conclusion of three great tribal yells of vindication and glory,  
>The Ravenclaw girl stood and read the contents of birchbark runes,<br>With the gravity of knowing that participation would bind her to eternal fury  
>But the willingness to proceed despite such formidable doom.<p>

_O come you out, O come you out,_

_Wake, wake, lovely white soul of the night!_

_The singing mouse sings plaintively,_

_The sweet night-bird in the chesnut-tree—_

_They sing together, bird and mouse,_

_In starlight, at sunrise, lonely, sweet,_

_The wild notes and the faint notes meet—_

_O come you out, O come you out,_

_Wake, wake, lovely white soul of the night!_

_Amid the lilies floats the moth,_

_The mole along his galleries goeth_

_In the dark earth; the summer moon_

_Looks like a shepherd through the pane_

_Seeking his feeble lamb again—_

_O come you out, O come you out,_

_Wake, wake, lovely white soul of the night!_

There the other girls rose from the ground, dust-covered and red with sweat  
>To each place an object inside the cauldron: one a textbook, one a scarf, one a quill.<br>Their brew bubbled with the smell of potent virility and sang with the harmony of a duet  
>That the girls returned with open voices as the potion began to quiet and distill.<p><p> 


	6. Chapter 6

vi.

The raven who had sacrificed her dignity was praised by the Hufflepuff lambs  
>For her performance in their ritual, which was nearly done, and she bore a graceful smile<br>Until they turned away, clutching their clothes to their naked bosoms,  
>And she caught Severus' glance again, whereupon she turned pale.<p>

Her head was weighed with shame, and her limbs began to shake  
>As though she knew what <em>he <em>knew about her...that her motive was to feel human.  
>Perhaps, like he had, she surrounded herself with friends who were fake<br>And with whom she shared nothing, simply because otherwise, there was no one.

There was no rest for the wicked, and wicked she surely was, as a liar.  
>More was still to be done to fulfill this unholy obligation to complete the brew.<br>So the other girls begged her to gather more weeds and flare up the fire  
>For they were cold, and the potion had lost its boil anyway, so what could she do?<p>

She gave him a shrug of resignation, returning to the burden,  
>Knowing full well she had wrought the gilded cage around her for herself.<br>Soon the time for leisure was over, and she hurried to fill an earthen  
>Urn with her spit and hairs pulled from her head, and then to stir the pot she knelt.<p>

Her companions gave of their personals as well, disposing of all in the cauldron  
>And they let their breaths hitch and their sighs echo in the still night air,<br>The chill of which was less with the approaching, heavy glow of dawn.  
>Severus, being a child, was becoming restless at sitting there. <p>


	7. Chapter 7

vii.

So he lay upon the floor of the dingy Shrieking Shack, alone,  
>To rest his eyes a moment, when he heard the three nymphs scream<br>In horror and delight, and the land shook, and Severus was thrown  
>Against the wall, and what he saw outside recalled some terrible dreams.<p>

Rising from the cauldron with the figure of Adonis was a novel rarity,  
>Svelte, strong, and handsome, with his joyful smile and sensitive grin<br>Was one that Snape recognized as that of one Cedric Diggory  
>Though for his gentle prowess he might have been Iseult's Tristan.<p>

He wore no trousers, shoes, or coat, but the girls paid this no mind;  
>They had achieved what they desired, and like the priestesses of Dionysus,<br>With wildness they wrested him from the fire, with the ferocity of the Bacchae,  
>Crazed with desire for their docile Frankenstein, who smiled at their lust.<p>

The manifestation of the long-dead hero had captured their imaginations;  
>Upon the ground they lay, their tiger-lily fingers testing their supple prize.<br>Even the Ravenclaw girl, for all her reluctance, seemed to have lost her inhibitions  
>As she opened her mouth to sing, Apollo having touched the strings between her thighs.<p> 


	8. Chapter 8

viii.

Satiated, she rolled away as her companions sought the attentions of their creature  
>To stop rather near the fence of the old house, guarded by tares and weeds.<br>In some time she rose, composed once more, while her friends yelled in rapture  
>Only to, with ginger steps and tender dressing, over the fence proceed.<p>

With the certainty of recognition at closer quarters, Severus prayed a moment  
>That his black, now oversized clothes would serve to hide him in the darkness.<br>Hiding his head and tightly in a corner, his remembered wand extended,  
>He feared what she might think when she saw and knew his likeness.<p>

No words said she as she circled the house, searching for a door  
>By which to enter, but there was no portal whose handle she might try,<br>For locking up the transformed Remus Lupin had been the wise intent of Dumbledore.  
>But the girl did not know this, and soon her fairy footfalls eased to silence in a gentle sigh.<p>

She then returned to her companions, for she was the capable person  
>Who had been given the task of leader in this morbid, frenzied, Dionysian epic<br>To call forth from the dead some person, for whom her friends had fierce and  
>Unquenchable passions as vehement and unresolvable as the forest thick.<p>

The cauldron called for her attentions with embers scarlet and dying,  
>And she went to minister to it while Titania and Jane lay on the ground with Diggory,<br>Their naked bodies full and unstill as they sought to quell the forces of unbearable yearning  
>While their Ravenclaw friend stirred the fire and refreshed their witches' brew of glory.<p> 


End file.
